The Comms Room

Basil

00:01

hey guys, dumb ac adaptor question- if something is rated 5v 3a dc out, will that work in anything it fits that requires 5v 3a dc?

I have a new dlink wifi router with too short a power cord

and the cord of the one it's replacing is long enough

freiheit

@Basil Polarity has to match

Journeyman Geek

yeah.

Basil

@freiheit Are you messing with me?

Journeyman Geek

In this case though, I'd just use an extention cord

Basil

@JourneymanGeek Not an option :\

Journeyman Geek

00:03

@Basil: no - there's this wierd + -CO- - ish looking symbol for that

Basil

@freiheit Oh, for a sec I thought I had read "frequency"

:P

Journeyman Geek

and which dlink wifi router? I'm going to be stuck with one soon ;p

Basil

I think I see what you mean- there's a - c 0, each one in circles

@JourneymanGeek Don't do what I did- I bought the cheapest one I could find with the crap selection at future shop

I settled on anything I could find under 50$ without "open box, but certified by our experts" stickers on it

here goes nothing- I'm dropping offline for a while

Journeyman Geek

o0

people would buy a dlink router?

@Basil: New-Old fiber ISP supplies a dlink AC router. Reviews seem decent other than crap 2.4ghz range/performance. Guess what most of my gear uses?

Mark Henderson

@JourneymanGeek D-Link are the only ones I know of that sell a single-port modem

I like them because I just put em in bridged mode, plug them directly into the WAN router, keep them off the switch, and there's no fuckign confusion about where it goes because there's only one port

Journeyman Geek

00:16

@MarkHenderson: ADSL?

I think I have one from .... I think sgs thomson lying around

Mark Henderson

@JourneymanGeek Yeah ADSL

Basil

And I'm back

Journeyman Geek

I've actually never used that ;p

Basil

I don't want anything complex, just a router that basically works

Journeyman Geek

(went straight to cable from dialup)

Basil

00:22

so I paid 35$ and got a dlink

Journeyman Geek

@Basil: "that basically works" is the part that worries me

in my experience dlinks have tended to be crochety pieces of junk that fall over if you look at em odd

Basil

Mine lasted until my kid baptised it.

Mark Henderson

@Basil My first kid baptised a brand new iPhone 4 :(

I got portable item insurance after that incident. Just as well because 6 months later my iPhone 4 went through the washing machine

cole

Reason for me not to have kids #4895349853

Mark Henderson

I don't like a lot of the stuff Mr Atwood has written lately, but his post on parenting is very accurate

blog.codinghorror.com/on-parenthood

cole

00:35

Only time I like kids

Mark Henderson

@cole When they're not yours :P

cole

Correct.

Also, she's adorable as fuck.

Mark Henderson

This is the bit where like a good uncle you shoot her with a Nerf gun and run away

cole

I bought her that annoying cat keyboard you see there. Uncle of the year!

I love that little stinker though.

& she does things like this:

My sister: Quinn what are you doing?
Quinn: Leave me alone!
My sister: No, what are you doing?
Quinn: MAKING DOG
COFFEE!
My sister: You're making dog coffee?
Quinn: Yes, go away. Go away!

Mark Henderson

@cole How old?

cole

00:38

2.

My lord I have a large head. I hope that's an optical illusion.

Mark Henderson

I wish my son would tell me to go away. It's more like:

"Levi, what are you doing?"
"Making dog coffee. Here help me with this"
"I can't make I'm busy"
"Dad, come on! Help me!"
"You're doing fine on your own!"
"No! Just say 'fine!' and come and help me!"
"Sigh... fine..."

cole

LOL she's Ms. Independent - with two older brothers who are 5 & 6.

Fuck I think I want kids now. WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?!

Mark Henderson

@cole Ugh one of the most humilating times of highschool: Year 10, the basic level maths class were doing circumferences so they measured the head of every person in the year level to figure the circumference. Of course, I had the largest head in the year level.

cole

@MarkHenderson I think it's just the angle...I think

I'm pretty compact:

beer gut city though.

Mark Henderson

@cole I think the electrician forgot to finish the light installation

strugee

00:42

@cole is that the EMP?

cole

@strugee yes

strugee

@cole I love that place

cole

@strugee it was awesome!

strugee

@cole RIGHT?

cole

@strugee I do like it out here in WA

I've had a blast, even had lunch with @RyJones & @Magellan today!

strugee

00:44

@cole so do I. <3 Seattle

Journeyman Geek

lol

My nephew is still at the perfect age. Dosen't walk or crawl, dosen't cry ;p

strugee

@JourneymanGeek excuse me

oh, nevermind.

I was ready to get all offended and defend my city, but apparently you weren't talking about that. awkward.

Journeyman Geek

@strugee: I've never met anyone who hates seattle. And thats saying something

Mark Henderson

@JourneymanGeek Doesn't cry for you

Actually kids become way more fun once you can talk to them and do things with them. I spent Monday making Lego kits with my 4 year old

But from like birth to 18 months they're frustrating

strugee

@JourneymanGeek Seattle is the best damn city I've ever been in. and given that this is the Comms Room I'm surprised you haven't met anyone who hates it

except for internet access. that sucks.

puts on hipster glasses at least until seattlemesh.net takes off!

Mark Henderson

00:50

@strugee Microsoft hogging all the bandwidth?

Michael Hampton

I generally preferred Portland, but then again I only spent a couple of weeks in Seattle while visiting Microsoft (which may have colored my perception negatively).

Mark Henderson

So not a fan of meshed wireless networks

Or any sort of mass wireless network for that matter

strugee

@MarkHenderson nah, nothing that dramatic. it's the typical awful choices for ISPs.

we were going to get a beautiful fiber-optic network but it got cancelled.

Mark Henderson

@strugee Yeah.... similar story in Australia

We were gunna get fibre to the premesis, but it got all fucked up and will probably never get finished now

strugee

@MarkHenderson is it the meshnet component or the wireless component?

Mark Henderson

00:52

@strugee The fiber part

@strugee Oh which part don't I like?

Both, meshes and wireless. But mostly wireless

Too slow, too unreliable, too much latency, too little bandwidth

Way too high contention

strugee

@MarkHenderson yeah

@MarkHenderson now that, I understand

Gigabit Seattle

Gigabit Seattle was a fiber-to-the-home / fiber-to-the-business network planned to be deployed in Seattle, Washington. The network comes out of a partnership between the City of Seattle, the University of Washington and digital economic development company Gigabit Squared to deploy a next generation network in the City. The project is the second city project announced by Gigabit Squared as part of its Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program, after Gigabit Chicago. Background Since 2004, leadership in the City of Seattle pursued affordable, Internet access for residents and businesses with ...

it was gonna be so nice

Mark Henderson

@strugee Our FTTP project (called National Broadband Network, NBN) was badly managed by the previous government, and is a political pawn for the current government

It's a great thing on paper, and if it gets built it will be great

strugee

@MarkHenderson ouch

Mark Henderson

But they are so far behind schedule and over budget I don't think it will ever get finished

Their current rollout map also stops about 100m short of the street that I live in :(

strugee

that's what ended up happening to Gigabit Seattle

the city cut them off because they were too far behind and were in too much debt

@MarkHenderson that was going to happen to me. two freakin' blocks from my mom's house was the limit. I was hoping they'd expand later

it doesn't matter now, though

Mark Henderson

00:57

They probably gave forward a realistic schedule in the beginning, but some poltician or C-level got a hold of it and probably cut 5 years off the rollout to make it look better

strugee

something like that

Mark Henderson

They were going to spend something like half a trillion on our project - I'm not sure how on earth it was poissible to spend that much!

strugee

the city is actually considering a government-owned network, though. it would be really useful to them for - get this - smart power meters.

that's the motivation.

Mark Henderson

@strugee Yeah we already have them. Proprietary wireless spectrum that was purchased

Everyone who has got one - their power bills have gone up

Bob

@MarkHenderson I thought it's on hold now?

Mark Henderson

00:59

I will have to get one when I get solar unfortuantely, because that's part of the deal

@Bob They are finishing what they started

But not starting any new rollouts

strugee

@MarkHenderson ouch.

Bob

Ugh.

They were due to start in my area at the end of this year.

Whether they would have made that on time was uncertain, but at least it was expected soonish.

Now? I'm currently dealing with 5-10 mins of connectivity (if I'm lucky) between dropouts while waiting for TPG and Telstra to send someone over to potentially charge me for the trouble of telling me my wiring is fucked without fixing anything.

Fuck copper.

Fuck ADSL.

Journeyman Geek

holy crap

one of the ISPs is having 10 gbps business internet.

I wonder what they hell do they even use for a cpe.

Bob

:(

I'm happier to be at work now. Urk.

Journeyman Geek

sorry ;p

Our FTTH rollout is interesting. Government usually sets up the initial infrastructure then spins it off - the ex-telephone monopoly bought it over. The company handling that network is having trouble with rollout, so two other players (who have their own fibre networks for other reasons) offered to take up the slack

I do not see that happening anywhere else

strugee

01:12

@JourneymanGeek something like that happened in Seattle.

Gigabit Squared leased the city's pre-existing partial fiber-optic network.

they were supposed to expand it and turn it into, you know, a consumer product. but then they failed at that.

Journeyman Geek

@strugee: US ISPs play dirty

strugee

the problem is that there are no competitors to take up the slack, it's just Comcast and CenturyLink and some tiny-ass ISP that IIRC enforces usage caps

@JourneymanGeek it's awful. Americans pay the most money for the slowest Internet access in the world.

Bob

Wasn't there some gov funding given to Verizon for FTTP, whcih they never completed?

@strugee ...I'd like to have a word with you.

strugee

@Bob ?

Mark Henderson

@Bob Check the NBN rollout map; they have marked in green the parts that are going to be finished

Bob

01:15

@strugee "most money for the slowest" => you haven't seen anything that bad yet

@MarkHenderson we disappeared off that map :\

Mark Henderson

@Bob When did you check it last?

Literally last week it was updated

Bob

@MarkHenderson about a month ago?

@MarkHenderson really? fuck.

strugee

@Bob oh?

Mark Henderson

@strugee I doubt that

Bob

> The NBN rollout has not started in your area. Keep checking the website for updates and more information.

:\

strugee

01:16

@MarkHenderson well, I could be wrong. and I'm not motivated enough to search for it

/me goes back to IT Security

Mark Henderson

@strugee How does $7,931/month for a 10MB/10MB line sound?

telstra.com.au/small-business/broadband/office-broadband/…

That's what Telstra were going to charge us

Bob

> Do you need a high-end communications solution that facilitates video calls? Or do you need to be able to distribute data from one site to another, or to multiple sites? Do you need it to be scalable?

That word, you keep using it. I do not think it means what you think it means.

2

strugee

@MarkHenderson WTF??

I stand corrected

Bob

@MarkHenderson And then there's the glorious world of "business" ADSL.

aka forget about "cloud", forget about online backups, be glad you can load Google.

Mark Henderson

@strugee damn straight you do. Americans in metro areas can't complain. Although I believe that your rural situation is similar to ours

I.e. you can get ADSL2 if you're lucky, sattelite if you're unlucky and nothing at all for everyone else

strugee

01:24

@MarkHenderson something like that

Mark Henderson

@Bob And at 8c/MB for going over your allowance, better turn off Google Image Search and YouTube

strugee

let's just agree it's bad everywhere

Mark Henderson

Booyah, +200

200

Q: Column 80 - Plain Text optimised Stack Exchange

Screenshot / Code Snippet About Browsing the existing Stack Exchange family of websites was OK in a text-based browser, but when you're stuck in a Linux shell with no way out and no other computers around and you just know you saw the answer on Server Fault last week, this is how you can fi...

app

Journeyman Geek

@MarkHenderson: you totally earned that ;p

Mark Henderson

Back on the good old site where upboats are worth 10 rep

strugee

01:28

@MarkHenderson #hero

Mark Henderson

@strugee I so nearly won a prize for that

I came 4th :(

And afaik it's the only entry from the original contest still maintained/in use

strugee

@MarkHenderson what competition were you doing?

Mark Henderson

@strugee When the API launched in 2010 they had a competition; most upboated applications would win monitors and toys and shit

With veto power from judges, so if a shit application got to the top of the queue they could still throw it out

strugee

@MarkHenderson ooo, fancy

also: are you actually saying "upboated" or is that some stupid userscript I installed and forgot about?

Bob

Ok, who the fuck thought adding spelling autocorrect to a webserver was a good idea?

Mark Henderson

01:31

@strugee I'm saying upboated

I don't evn know where that meme started

Bob

@strugee "yes"

strugee

@MarkHenderson gotcha

@Bob thanks mate

Mark Henderson

Ugh so apparently its a reddit thing

urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=upboat

I shall cease using it immediately. I don't like reddit

Hah my sister amuses me. She posts this on facebook:

> Noodles for dinner while watching Wind In The Willows, which I failed to check for suitableness before putting it on, but so far I think it's just scraping through as not-too-scary.

(regarding her 4 year old)

My 4 year old was watching me play watch_dogs and goes "Dad! Run over that fat lady!"

(which is totally inappropriate and I told him that we don't run over people unless its by accident because the driving mechanics suck)

Journeyman Geek

meh, if people get run over, you're simply culling the weak and the slow.

Mark Henderson

@JourneymanGeek They are pretty good at running away in watchunderscoredogs

But the occasional person somehow doesn't manage to dodge my 2-tonne car that I've launched off a ramp into a shopping center mall

Bob

01:43

@MarkHenderson I've heard good things about it, but haven't gotten around to playing it yet.

@MarkHenderson I wonder why.

Journeyman Geek

I need to get that next steam sale

I've gotten into the habit of never paying retail for anything that dosen't involve physical media ;p

Mark Henderson

@Bob It's good fun if you ignore the hype

Just accept it for what it is, and accept that the 2nd game when it comes out will fix all the problems with it

Journeyman Geek

@MarkHenderson: just like with SR I guess

Mark Henderson

Its biggest problem is the main character. He is boring with no depth or back story. Assassins Creed had a similar problem, but AC2 made one of the most memorable characters in video game history

Journeyman Geek

(SR2 was unplayable when it came to driving without mods. SR3 and 3 was a romp)

Mark Henderson

01:46

@JourneymanGeek I havent played 1 or 2, only 3 and 4

THey're on my todo list

Wesley

@MarkHenderson I'm still playing through Doom 1.

Not even joking. =P

Mark Henderson

As is Just Cause 1&2, System Shock 2, and about a dozen other games I bought in humble bundles or steam sales

@Wesley Doom 2 is better. Double barrelled shotgun, ftw!

The BOOM! Click click shlliick shliiink click of the double barrled shotgun firing and reloading shout be included in the video game hall of fame

I used it pretty much exclusively except for in situations where too much shit was going on. Then it was plasma rifle.

Wesley

@MarkHenderson Yeah I'm getting there. Then Heretic and Hexen.

Then on to Quake.

Mark Henderson

@Wesley Quake. omg so many hours spent in quake

Listening to Nine Inch Nails

Wesley

I only played those games as demos as a kid. Couldn't buy the real ones. Then I got older and did the school and work things and forgot about gaming for the most part.

@MarkHenderson I liked NIN but I spent most of my time playing the demo over and over listening to Tool.

That was right when Undertow came out.

Mark Henderson

01:51

@Wesley There was a dude at the local swapmeet who had a trailer full of games on floppy disks. Piracy the old fashioned way!

@Wesley Ohh Tool would be a good Quake soundtrack too

Journeyman Geek

I remember trying to log in to the original Command and Conquer servers a year or two back and feeling like I was knocking on the boarded-up gates of a ghost town.

Wesley

@MarkHenderson Oh wait, sorry, that was when Ænima came out.

Journeyman Geek

lol. Machinae supremacy is my music to kill people to (tm)

Wesley

@JourneymanGeek I literally get games on a ten year lag at the newest. I only just finished HL 2 last Christmas

Mark Henderson

@JourneymanGeek I have a playlist on my iPod called "Songs to roll up your windows to" - awesome songs that you just dont' want people to know you're listening to in the car

Journeyman Geek

01:52

;p

most of my music is SFW, and does not involve butts

Wesley

@MarkHenderson Kylie Minogue?

Mark Henderson

@JourneymanGeek I do this re high end systems. My current PC dates from 2009 and I'm still playing plenty of games

Journeyman Geek

My roomie however is a furry faced music snob, and hates anything but indian classical.

Mark Henderson

@Wesley Oh god no

Wesley

circa 1989 Kylie Minogue!!

Mark Henderson

01:53

I'm thinking of Fucking Bitches by ASAP Rocky, or I Sucked A Lot Of Cock To Get Where I Am by Regurgitator

Journeyman Geek

@MarkHenderson: I have a 2007 era PC with a few small updates (mostly re dead parts)

Its still usable for gaming

Mark Henderson

@JourneymanGeek Just wait for humble bundles and steam sales

Journeyman Geek

@MarkHenderson: thats precisely what I do

Mark Henderson

I got into SR because of the THQ Humble Bundle just before they went bust

Wesley

@MarkHenderson How about Pigtails are Made for Facefucking by Waking The Cadaver

Mark Henderson

01:54

Only upgrade to my PC in 5 years was a second hand video card a few weeks ago

Wesley

Or anything by Shortbus Pileup

Mark Henderson

And that was specifically for W_D

Journeyman Geek

@MarkHenderson: eh, I went from a gforce 8800 to a passively cooled ddr3 gforce 450 with the 600 series first came out

Mark Henderson

@Wesley I don't know that one but yes that would be on the playlist

As is Detachable Penis

Wesley

@MarkHenderson I've been thinking of adding a card to my Inspiron

Mark Henderson

01:55

And Waving my Dick in the Wind

Journeyman Geek

first hand, but I didn't know I was upgrading at the time

Wesley

@MarkHenderson King Missile!!

Journeyman Geek

@Wesley: >_> which inspiron?

Mark Henderson

@JourneymanGeek I had a 7900, then to a GTX260 and now to a GTX 660

Journeyman Geek

the 660 is a great card

Mark Henderson

01:55

@Wesley Jesus was way cool

Wesley

@JourneymanGeek Some AMD POS form like 2008

Journeyman Geek

my newish gaming card has it

Mark Henderson

@JourneymanGeek Great price point on the 2nd hand market too

Journeyman Geek

@Wesley: oh god. Its probably the sibling of the one that I turned into my current computer

Wesley

@JourneymanGeek Let me go take a pic. It's on the carpet in my bedroom with old, garbage peripherals plugged in

Bob

01:57

@MarkHenderson ditto. SR is great.

Journeyman Geek

Dell Inspiron

Dell's Inspiron computer product line started as a range of laptop computers targeted at the entry-level, budget, a Mobile Celeron or Mobile Pentium II processor with SDRAM, and had a high starting price of $2,799. Now the Inspiron line mainly consists of mid-level computer systems. Current models Netvertibles As it has a wide range of generally Budget laptops, The specifications and price vary from model to model. The common varieties these days are: Processor: Intel Celeron, Pentium or Core2Duo CPU RAM:4-8 GB 1600MHZ DDR3 Hard Disk-5400-7200RPM 240GB-1TB Display- 14,15 and 17 in...

My current desktop started as one of these

Wesley

I think mine was $300 brand new.

Journeyman Geek

Threw out the video card a week or so after I got it.

Wesley

Journeyman Geek

yup ;p

its a 531

Wesley

01:59

That Acer flatscreen? 19"? Circa the industrial revolution. Really surprised it's still working.

Beat the shit out of it and it keeps coming back.

Journeyman Geek

I hate that case ;p

and the powersupply

and my old 530 died IMMEDIATELY when I gave it away to someone ;p

Wesley

@JourneymanGeek You got the Intel one?

Journeyman Geek

had

Wesley

Yeah I have the 531

Journeyman Geek

I think the only part of it I still have is... erm... nothing

Wesley

02:01

Nothing but the memories. And that's why we have alcohol.

Journeyman Geek

I added a hard drive, monitor, keyboard and mouse when I picked it up

those I still have ;p

Bob

@Wesley That looks a lot like my old Vostro.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: Vostros and inspirons are identical other than colour ;p

Oh

do you have the funky side mounted hard drive bays?

those annoyed the hell out of me

(NOT a standard inspiron, someone decided to polish a turd ;p)

I can't believe they cheaped out there

and the standard PSU has no video card connectors or molex connectors

Bob

@JourneymanGeek The standard PSU was some puny 300W thing

Journeyman Geek

yeah. and quite useless for any flavour of addons ;p

@Bob: for context, this is the box that swedish chefed

Bob

02:12

Ugh. I thought deb and rpm packaging was annoying.

Now that I'm fiddling with msi... fuck.

Chris S

@MichaelHampton What do you typically use for a MTA and MDA?

Michael Hampton

@ChrisS Postfix, dovecot, solved.

Chris S

I know I tried Postfix many years ago... can't remember why I didn't like it.

Mark Henderson

@ChrisS because configuring it is the devil

lol

> Dovecot is an open source IMAP and POP3 email server for Linux/UNIX-like systems, written with security primarily in mind.

Using "secure" and "pop3" in the same sentence

Michael Hampton

02:30

Eh? POP3 is pretty simple. IMAP, that is the devil's work.

Mark Henderson

POP3 on its own is easy as piss to break into

Just sit on the network listening for plain text passwords

Bob

@MarkHenderson that applies for a lot of things

Mark Henderson

Used to do it in highschool; got the passwords for all the staff and the sysadmins

Mind you back then they had 10mb hubs which made it easier

Bob

I think it's good have a separate layer for transport security

@MarkHenderson luckily (or not), the current schoolwide wifi is effectively the same thing

Mark Henderson

02:47

@Bob Yeah well NSW has just sacked all of its sysadmins

So we'll see how long those wifi's stay online for

Jacob

@MarkHenderson Did you get your promotion?

Mark Henderson

@Jacob ?

Jacob

@MarkHenderson You wanted to talk to the boss about shifting your position to accomplish more or something?

Mark Henderson

@Jacob Right

I havent spoken to him yet

Timing has to be right

Not so much as a promotion as just a shift as the company grows

Plus I better make sure my todo list has shrunk considerably before I ask him to abandon it :P

Jacob

@MarkHenderson A shift that makes you more valuable should also increase your compensation.

Mark Henderson

02:53

@Jacob Not always

I work at a very small company. Compensation is directly related to the success of the company

It won't go down, but it also won't go up unless the company is making more money

Jacob

@MarkHenderson So inherently if you are creating more value than your salary will as well. I'm in the same boat in that regard.

Mark Henderson

@Jacob Correct

Hows the VPN sales?

On target?

Jacob

@MarkHenderson Well we had a setback.

Mark Henderson

Oh?

Anything major?

Jacob

Jun 6 at 16:56, by Jacob

@MichaelHampton I intend to but you see the cloud provider my boss chose literally lost all of it's customers data. grammar not important today as it's friday

Mark Henderson

02:57

@Jacob Oh...

So that means for you?

You lost all your endpoints?

Jacob

@MarkHenderson Redeploy internal services

@MarkHenderson No, but I did lose access to them...

Mark Henderson

Poop

I was looking at MicroTik's "cloudcore" router range the other day; I saw that they can fit a buttload of tunnels into a single U for quite low cost with SSL offloading and a lot of throughput. Thought of you when I saw it.

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